We have spent the last week in the main Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA, making sure avast! works great on Windows 7. As a matter of fact, we have had two teams here working in parallel: one that takes care of interoperability issues (interoperability with both the new OS as well as other software applications) and one for the logo certification.

And what a week it was!

During that time, we tested avast with over 15 other low-level applications and fixed a few compatibility issues. For example, we made sure avast! works flawlessly with the upcoming Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) - a program that has severe issues with the current avast beta build 5.0.89, by the way (so this will be fixed in the next beta build, due in a couple of days). Also, we made sure that the new features that are coming up in avast 5, such as persistent caching, process virtualization and the firewall work great under Windows 7.

We're generally pretty excited about Windows 7, and hope it will be adopted soon, as it's not only nice for the users but it also brings a number of improvements and fixes for software developers.

The logo certification team was also busy making sure all compatibility issues are resolved and we meet all the requirements Microsoft defined for well-behaved Windows 7 applications. And their efforts were successful - in fact, they managed to earn the "Compatible with Windows 7" logo for avast (so far, the logo has only been given to avast 4.8 as Microsoft doesn't provide logos for beta software; but we're making sure that as soon as avast 5 is released, it will also have the logo). This is what it looks like:

Also, we will soon be listed on the Microsoft Antivirus partner pages (for Windows 7, Vista and XP). I expect there will be an official press release about this during the next week, too.

Now, we haven't been only working here - fortunately, we found some spare time and headed to White Salmon River for some whitewater fun. White Salmon is one of the very few rivers raftable even in late summer - that's because it is fed with glacier meltwater (Mount Adams Glacier). Here are some pictures, hope you enjoy them (no worries, we survived). ;-)

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